Coupling between distant biofilms and emergence of nutrient time

Event details

Bacteria within communities can interact to organize their behavior. It remains unclear whether such interactions extend beyond a single community to coordinate the behavior of distant populations. We discovered that two Bacillus subtilis biofilm communities undergoing metabolic oscillations become coupled through electrical signaling and synchronize their growth dynamics. Coupling increases competition by also synchronizing demand for limited nutrients. As predicted by mathematical modelling, we confirm that biofilms resolve this conflict by switching from in-phase to anti-phase oscillations. This results in time-sharing behavior where each community takes turns consuming nutrients. Time-sharing enables biofilms to counterintuitively increase growth under reduced nutrient supply. Distant biofilms can thus coordinate their behavior to resolve nutrient competition through time-sharing, a strategy used in engineered systems to allocate limited resources

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